High Modern Home: Minimalist Glass-on-Concrete Design

Le Corbusier, Johnson and van der Rohe would all recognize some elements of their own work in this stark piece of domestic modern minimalism – a steel-framed glass box atop a poured-in-place concrete base.

However, this unique reinterpretation of high-modernist ideas by Alberto Baeza goes beyond to embody a clever series of opposites in terms of everything from its construction to the way people within it experience its spaces.

Featuring floor-to-ceiling transparent glazing, the box on top serves as an open-plane living room area with only a thin wall of glass and a few white-painted posts between residents and the surrounding views.

The lower volume is nearly the opposite: completely enclosed on all sides save for a few small openings. Ultimately, this is the private, safe and secure counterpoint to the wide-open (nearly exterior) room above.

Anyone with an eye for basic architectural engineering will also notice that this outwardly simple structure is a very clear illustration of the two fundamental ways of thinking about building construction: steretomic (or stereometric) and tectonic – the former represented by the closed stacked-and-solid concrete base and the later by the open frame-and-infill space above.